SoaD Deleted Scenes
by HaiJu
Summary: What it sez on the tin - various scraps of scenes that were written for Shadow of a Doubt and eventually cut, for the curious completionists among you. Check the author's note for news on the the SoaD fanart contest! Deadline July 1st.
1. Chapter 1 - Dash

Hi everyone! This is a collection of scenes that didn't make it into SoaD. I did say I'd post these eventually- plus this gives me an excuse to announce the contest here on FFn.

 **If you're interested in the final SoaD fanart contest, check out the link in my profile! The deadline is July 1st.**

The following scenes were cut for plot, pacing, or because they felt redundant. **They are not necessary to the story and some of them do not fit the final continuity of SoaD.** Some of them have been posted to Tumblr in the past. I'm not really editing 'em either, just running spell check and fixing the formatting.

Enjoy!

-Hj

* * *

 **Deleted Scenes 1 :: Dash**

* * *

T _he original draft of SoaD included plans for a fully-fleshed-out flashback describing how, exactly, nobody noticed Danny was missing for nearly a month, and then a series of scenes following Dash as he spent nearly two months convincing himself he'd murdered Danny and needed to cover it up-then suddenly found out he hadn't when Danny reappears. I found it interesting to think about the unhealthy dynamics of the football team (which must be the case at Casper High if their quarterback is a bully) and how misplaced machismo could snowball into disaster._

 _Buuut after a while I came to my senses, realized that it dedicated way too much time to a minor character, and axed it. A condensed version found its way into Danny's story in Ch. 2 and Dash's brief appearance confronting Tucker in Ch. 12._

 _Only a few scenes from this arc actually made it into the written-out stage; the following are the two most intact._

* * *

"If you think I'm going to let you shave my head Dash, you're crazy."

"What did you think the razor was for, Fenhead?"

Dash growled and charged again, muscled arms swinging wide in an attempt to catch Danny in a bearhug. As the fight had dragged on from a few seconds to a few minutes, the freak had actually started getting cocky.

"What's the matter, Dash? Can't catch anything that's not leather with laces on it?"

"Catch? Ha!" he laughed, making his voice intimidating as much to scare the other boys as his opponent. He couldn't have them thinking he was losing his cool factor by fighting so long with a geek. "I'm playing games with you, Fenton. I can catch you anytime I try."

"Then maybe you'd better come up with a new game." Danny yawned, sidestepping to avoid what would have been an awesome leg sweep and glancing toward the campsite. "This one's getting old. I mean come on, catch the wimp? We play this back home. I wanna get some sleep before Teslaff starts yelling at me tomorrow. And the food? Man, I don't even wanna think about it."

Danny Fenton might be a wimp, but he was getting unbelievably good at dodging. Two years of regular beatings had done something for the kid, at least. Dash might have even felt a sense of pride if said pride wasn't currently steaming from being led around by the nose by this pitiful excuse for a human.

The other boys were starting to look at each other, starting to doubt him. Dash. Their leader. He couldn't allow it. This needed to end, and soon. "Hold-still, Fentwerp!"

"Oh sure," the teen said, grinning and ducking back just out of Dash's reach. "I'll just step right up and let you pummel me. What on earth was I thinking?" He leaned to the side and let the quarterback's roundhouse whistle past his ear. "I'll get on that right away."

"You think you're being cute when you talk like that, don't ya Fenton?"

"Aw, Dash, you think I'm cute? I'm flattered." That got a few snickers from the other football players. Dash saw red.

"Pin him in!" Dash snapped.

The big footballers grinned and formed a semicircle, pinning Danny between the railing and Dash's oncoming figure. Danny's eyes widened and at the last second, he ducked under the rail, clinging to it with a precarious grip as he tried to get his balance on the loose rock off the trail. What was he, an idiot? There was a hundred-foot drop on the other side.

It all happened at once. Dash's momentum carried him into the railing, shaking it with a bang. The geek boy was thrown back. Then his fingers slipped and he fell off the edge into the dark of the ravine. His surprised shout was swallowed by the wind, leaving Danny staring down, open-mouthed, into the dark. For a wild moment he thought he saw a bright flash of light and the silhouette of his favorite hero rushing down into the ravine. But that was just his mind playing tricks on him; what would Phantom be doing all the way out in the woods? Fenton was gone.

And it was all his fault.

Jake, one of the linebackers, spoke first. "You know Teslaff, she lives by the charts in this thing. If Fenton's name isn't in the books, it's like he was never here at all."

"Like that's gonna work. Everybody saw him get off the bus."

"Then maybe he got called home sick. Maybe his psycho family came by and dragged him off for some ghost thing. Doesn't matter as long as nobody asks us. What do we know? We're just a bunch of kids at camp."

"I don't like it."

"Yeah. What about after? They're gonna know something happened to him when he never shows back up."

"Nothing happened, okay?" Dash cut in. "Some loser went missing. What do you care?" The boys shuffled uncomfortably, but nobody met his eyes. They did care, some of them, but nobody was Fenton's friend. "Nobody's gonna say anything otherwise, either. Not if they want to see the other side of high school in one piece."

"What kind of stupid bluff is that? I'm bigger than you, Baxter, even if you are the quarterback."

"If he could do it to Fenton, he could do it to you, pinhead."

Dash hated how all their wide, staring eyes centered on him, the belief in all his faces. To him, he was a killer. If he wanted to get away without ending up in jail, or worse, off the team, then he had to keep them thinking that way. So he wrote Fenton's name on the Excused Students lists, careful to make his writing shaky and hard to read like the old man who drove the bus, then threw the book at Kwan and snapped the pen in half. He tossed it into the gorge after Fenton, the tiny white object vanishing into the dark like he did. Dash cracked his knuckles and the whole team flinched. Good.

"Nothing happened," he snarled one last time, then walked back toward the camp. If Dash wasn't scared out of his mind he would have been proud of the way the big linemen parted in front of him. But all he could see was that Fenton kid's scared white face, eyes staring right at him till he vanished.

* * *

Dash tied his shoelaces and stood up, putting his football helmet under his arm and jogging out to the edge of the bleachers. Practice wouldn't begin for another hour, but the quarterback had to be early. He had to be the first one on the field.

It was the first day of school, and there hadn't been one word about Fenton.

Maybe he was gone for good this time. Dah didn't know why Fenton had run off. He didn't care. What mattered was that for whatever reason he'd kept his mouth shut. And this time it was Fenton's own damn fault. Nobody could pin a runaway on Dash.

Dash dropped his helmet on the dewy sidelines and leaned over, stretching. He'd kept himself in shape, of course. He was the star of the team after all. That meant he had to make it look easy. Like he didn't get up and run at five every morning before school. Like he didn't spend hours in the weight room late at night.

Easy like Phantom always did, zooming into whatever chaos the ghost of the day had caused with that cocky smile and knocking said flat with one white-gloved fist. Phantom never looked defeated. He'd always have some stupid, brave thing to say. He never seemed to know when he ought to back down.

Just like the usual Fenton.

Dash growled and snatched up a net bag full of footballs.

That was part of the reason Dash couldn't ever leave that stupid nerd alone. Fenton always had to come back with some smart remark, like he didn't care if his body made a permanent dent in the locker room floor, or whether Dash scrubbed the toilets with his face. He never looked beaten. Not the way he'd looked that last time.

Dash had gone to visit. Made up some excuse, forced the guys from the team to sign off on some lame get well card and crowded himself into the room with three other classmates. He had to look Fenton in the eyes and know why Dash wasn't halfway to juvenile hall already.

He'd wanted to see the twerp's face. He hadn't become Casper High's uncontested reigning bully without knowing how to teach nerds to keep their mouths shut. With his football record, the teachers turned a blind eye to the few that did go telling tales.

That wasn't the usual Fenton that had been sitting there in the hospital room, looking even more skinny and pathetic than usual. That Fenton hadn't even had the fight to say a word. He'd just looked at Dash vacantly, then mumbled a completely unsarcastic thanks for the card.

Anyway the parents were way too nice to Dash than they would have been if the Fenturd had told. He didn't look scared of Dash either, which was annoying. He looked…not all there. Like a ghost. Not the real, scary, glowy green ones, but more like the ones you heard stories about. Those washed-out things that didn't seem all there.

Dash dragged the bag out to the twenty-fifth yard line. He lined the balls up in a row, setting each meticulously on its own stand. Then he kicked them at the goalposts with a vengeance. Three went out of bounds, and a fourth bounced off the goal posts, bouncing back pathetically into the end zone.

This was no good. He had to be making goals, solid ones, by the time the rest of the team straggled in. He lined up another row of balls.

That was that, then. Unless one of the other guys grew a pair or, even less likely, sprouted a guilty conscience, then Dash was off scot free. Nobody who mattered knew. Nobody who knew cared enough to tell, or at least they were too scared about their getting their own skins expelled for it to matter. Everything was perfect.

He hit the first ball solidly, and it went soaring straight toward the goal—too low. It bounced roughly over the bottom pole. In, but barely. Dash scowled.

Only as perfect as Amity Park could be, now that Phantom was had stopped showing up. They said the ghost was gone, maybe captured. Or maybe he got bored or scared and went back to that ghost place already.

Miss.

Dash would never believe that. Phantom wasn't some wimp like Danny Fenturd. He was better than human. He wouldn't get caught by some lame-ass ghost hunter.

Miss.

Phantom was a hero. Someone better than the rest. Someone untouchable. Not a loser, like Fenton. Not a regular guy, like Dash. A regular guy who almost murdered some–

The last ball crashed into the bleachers, clattering through the cheap aluminum and disappearing in the yet to be trimmed summer growth underneath.

Kwan wandered onto the field. He was bleary-eyed and still in his sweats, gear hanging out of the half-zipped duffel on his shoulder.

"You're here early," he mumbled, scratching his head. It did nothing for the cowlick jutting out of his straight, jet-black hair. "I thought I was early, but man, you're early, early. Like earliness but earlier."

Dash huffed and snatched up the empty ball bag. He wasn't in the mood to deal with Kwan's rambling word quirks today.

The reason nobody picked on Kwan was because it was a waste of effort. He was too big to push around and not bright enough to know when he was being made fun of. But he was strong, and stubborn when he wanted to be, which made him a decent lineman. He was easy to order around too… and maybe the only kid who didn't act scared around Dash since this summer. Dash couldn't decide if he liked that or hated it. He was sure it wasn't the reason he'd taken to hanging with Kwan more often.

"Go suit up," Dash said brusquely, putting on his helmet and and turning to fetch the fallen balls. "We'll start with pass practice."


	2. Chapter 2 - Nicki

_Nicki was a really fun character to write. I needed someone who could goad Danny out of his hopelessness and challenge him when he felt sorry for himself - neither of which were possible from the warm and reassuring Shannon. Nicki was very elastic at first, both in background and appearance, and for a while had a more dominant role in the plot - including an evil boyfriend and a whole subplot on how she ended up as the legal guardian of her little sister. And an apartment fire. It was epic. And totally unecessary and distracting, haha. It got shaved down to a smaller and more focused role in the final version._

 _These are a few scenes that didn't make the cut, which I'll comment on individually, since they're all a bit different._

 _-Hj_

* * *

 _This was Nicki's original introduction - at this early stage Danny was a lot more involved at the clinic, and I was also feeling out her personality. I knew I needed someone who didn't feel sorry for Danny but would go out of their way to engage with him as well. It was ultimately cut for length and because it just didn't quite fit with the feeling of Part 1. I put her at the reception desk in Danny's first visit to the clinic instead, which was a much more efficient way to integrate her, and she was able to perform a function while still showing some of her personality._

* * *

The mop landed with a wet slap on the linoleum. The hallway was empty, though Danny could hear the chatter of the nurses and phones ringing at the front desk round the corner.

They had worked it out so he could spend time doing odd jobs here at the clinic at the same time that Shannon did her volunteer shift as a nurse. Mopping floors wasn't exactly Danny's idea of fun...but he liked feeling useful. It made him much less uncomfortable about the whole "free" treatment thing.

Danny heard a pair of high heels coming from behind, but didn't bother looking up, too busy trying to work out how to wring the mop out one-handed.

"Look at this, we have a new mop boy."

He looked up to find a girl maybe three or four years older than he was. She was dressed in slacks and a blouse instead of scrubs, and had an armful of folders clasped in her arms. She looked him up and down, smirking. Her eyes fell on his sling. "What happened to you? Fall off your skateboard?"

Danny scowled at her. "Do you need something?"

"A car, a mansion, a million bucks," she shrugged, leaning against the wall and-purposely, he'd bet money-blocking his progress. "Nothing you can do about it."

"Sorry, I left my genie at home in a thermos."

She wrinkled her nose, confused by the reference. "You're a weird kid."

"I'm not a kid."

"If you aren't, puberty ripped you off."

"Maybe you're just freakishly tall."

"Maybe you're just freakishly hairless?" She leaned in to squint at his face with mock scrutiny. "I've seen peaches with manlier growth."

"Nicki," Shannon appeared from around the corner, frowning over her reading glasses. "Stop teasing him. He's new here."

"I know," The girl grinned down at him. "That's what makes it fun."

Danny made the mop intangible and swiped it through her shoes-cleaning the floor and leaving her socks totally drenched.

"Hey!"

"Sorry," he deadpanned. "I'm new here. Still working out how to use this thing."

Shannon rolled her eyes. "Good grief, you two. Nicki, you're supposed to be filing those papers. Danny, it'll do you no good at all to clean the floor if you make Nicki track water all over the place."

"She started it," he mumbled.

"Well I'm finishing it. Nicki, scoot!"

Nicki tossed her brown ponytail over one shoulder, clutching her stack of folders as she stalked away. The effect was somewhat ruined by the squelching sounds her soggy shoes made with every step.

Shannon chuckled as the girl disappeared around the corner. "Looks like you made a friend."

"I think you need new glasses."

"Oh come on. That's the first time I've seen you really enjoying yourself since we met."

"Being harassed by random girls is supposed to be fun?"

"Some boys can't get enough of it."

"Some boys are nuts," he retorted. "I get enough of that crap from my sister."

Shannon smiled; so he had a sister. "Come on, put that mop away. Let's go find some lunch."

* * *

 _Early on I knew that a) Gabe could sense ghosts and b) Danny would eventually befriend him by saving him, but it took me a while to work out the how and when. This was my first try at the rescue, which was ultimately trashed because the timeline changed (no snow/ice) and I figured out how to work the saving-Gabe bit into the punks-with-a-gun storyline - which made it shorter, more elegant and more interesting, imho._

* * *

The truck was perched on the top of the gentle incline of the alley behind the clinic, backed up close to the big back door of the clinic. That left only a couple of yards of icy, salt-slush covered pavement to walk through. Its driver had retreated inside with a handful of paperwork and was most likely sipping hot coffee and chatting with the nurses. Jerk.

"Last of the heavy stuff," Nicki announced, dropping another box of antiseptics into his outstretched arms. He winced at the jab of pain this sent up his injured arm, struggling to shift the weight onto his other arm.

"How come I'm the one carrying heavy things through the puddles, while you get to stand in the nice dry truck and throw things at me?"

"Because I'm the girl," she said, grinning as she leaned against the side of the truck. "And Patrick said you need to work out that arm."

"Patrick can go jump in a snowdrift," Danny grumbled. His arm was getting better, he had to admit. He could turn it over with little difficulty now, and even grip things. But it hurt like heck, especially when he tried to pick things up. Whenever he told Patrick that the man would slap him on the back and tell him that meant it was getting stronger. That guy's bedside manner reeked.

Danny sloshed through the icy, wet mess and deposited the box in the storage room with the rest of the supplies. This place would be absolute heaven for the Box Ghost. He tried not to think too hard about the usually pathetic ghost getting his hands on the syringes and chemicals in this room. That would be...a lot more than he could handle right now. Not that he'd tried any hero work since then. He hadn't even tried going ghost; the memory of being utterly unable to hold a physical form for more than a microsecond was still too fresh. In this wind he could be blown away in a second.

"Will you stop that?"

He looked up at Nicki, who was staring down at him with an annoyed look. "Stop what?"

"Every time the wind kicks up, you look like you expect something to jump out and attack." She smirked. "Jack Frost out to get you?"

"With my luck, probably."

She cocked her head, looking at him curiously. "Sometimes you don't make sense, Danny."

"Just give me the next box, will you?"

She pushed a big—but thankfully, light—box into her arms, then grabbed another similar one and scooted out of the truck, landing with a little splash in the puddles. "This is the last of it."

"Yes! I am so ready for a coffee break."

"For you, it's more like you take life breaks from your coffee."

"Haha, guess so." Another gust swept over them, and Danny shivered and looked around.

Nicki sighed dramatically. "Geez, what is it?"

Nothing. But...he spotted a figure at the bottom of the hill. An old man sat bent over something sitting on a crate, a metal barrel beside him flickering with a fire. Danny squinted, trying to figure out what he was doing, when he realized he recognized the navy blue jacket. "Isn't that Gabe down there?"

"That's him. I wonder why he's not up at the clinic."

Probably avoiding him, Danny thought with a pang of guilt. He'd really scared the old man the first time he showed up. He didn't know how Gabe could tell, but somehow he knew about the ghost thing. Probably best to just pretend he hadn't seen him. Danny turned back, already thinking about the hot, fresh coffee in the break room.

A loud snap came from under the truck. It was barely audible with the noise of the nearby streets, but for some reason it made his skin crawl. Danny paused, looking back. "What was that?"

Nicki was already climbing back onto the loading platform. "What was what? Come on, stop dragging your feet, it's cold out here."

Danny took one last look at the truck. The big vehicle gently, quietly rolled backwards. It picked up speed as it went down the hill. Danny's eyes widened as he realized it was headed straight for the warehouses at the bottom- and Gbe.

Nicki gasped. "Hey, that truck is-"

Danny was already sprinting down the sidewalk. He ran hard- harder than he had in weeks, pushing past the ache from the bite scar on his leg, past the exhaustion and discomfort of running with one arm trapped-driving himself until he flew by the speeding truck.

It wasn't fast enough. The old man finally looked up. eyes widening. He stood up and took a few staggering steps to the side, but it wasn't nearly far enough. The shadow of the runaway truck swallowed him up.

Danny launched himself forward, and he might have been flying for real now, he wasn't sure. He half collided, half caught the old man in a bear hug—too late, he knew a split second before. He shoved himself and the old man into intangibility just as the truck reached them. He used his momentum to plow straight through the truck and clear on the other side. They skidded a dozen feet into a pile of cardboard boxes.

The truck hit the warehouse with an almighty boom, rattling tiles off the roof and denting the steel wall into a v-shape. Danny rolled off the old man and looked back just in time to see the truck burst into flames.

He turned back to Gabe who hadn't moved. Suddenly his heart was in his throat. He hadn't had time to be gentle; old people were fragile, right? He hadn't killed the old guy trying to help him, had he?

Gabe sat up. The last brave few wisps of hair that remained on his sunburned head stuck up wildly, and his glasses were askew, but otherwise he seemed none the worse for wear. He looked from the smoking remains of the truck to Danny, bleary eyes wide with surprise. "A spook just saved my life."

Danny snorted, flopping onto his back, still breathless from his run but grinning in relief. "You're welcome."

"Heey!" Nicki stumbled to a halt, panting, resting her hands on her knees. "You - run - so dang fast."

Danny scrambled to his feet, only to sit down hard, suddenly lightheaded.

Nicki touched his shoulder, peering into his eyes. "Hey, you okay? You're white as a ghost."

"Ghost? Ha!" Gabe cackled gleefully, ignoring Nicki's baffled look. Danny just rolled his eyes.

* * *

 _This one is so AU for SoaD canon that it takes some explanation._

 _Nicki was the original victim of the alley shooting, but at some point in the writing process and discussing it with beta readers the idea came up to have it be Shannon instead. I was looking for ways to cut minor characters as much as possible, and Nicki was one of those on the chopping block. Shannon's 'death' would have been exciting, certainly, and incredibly devastating... but that in the end was the exact reason I decided to stick with my original choice. We were in the final stages of the story and I was trying to put Danny on a path to recovery. Making him responsible for injuring the person who'd taken him in would have just driven him further away - and Nicki didn't have the emotional sensitivity to help him through the last few chapters and his encounter with Maddie the way that Shannon did._

 _I did write a few things in that direction, though, and this is a little remnant leftover from those explorations._

* * *

Nicki took the half block from the bus stop at a brisk walk, Shannon's keys clutched in her hand. It felt surreal that her friend was in the hospital with a freaking gunshot wound. They were putting her in surgery this afternoon.

And Danny was just _gone._ Nobody knew how bad he was hurt or whether he'd left town, but nobody could find him, not the police, nobody at the clinic.

Nicki had volunteered to go over to Shannon's place to let Harley out and get a few things. They were putting her in surgery this afternoon, reconstructing her arm where the bullet had splintered it. Nicki shuddered; that had been barely three blocks from her house. If it had happened ten minutes earlier she would've heard the gunshot herself.

The lights were on. That was weird. The police had come by to look for Danny, but Nicki remembered the cop that talked to Shannon saying everything was dark. Harley trotted up to her, sniffing at her hands in a friendly way, and followed her into the kitchen.

There were a few pieces of dog food still in the bowl, and Harley licked them up industriously.

Somebody had been here before her.

"Danny!"

Nicki went upstairs and threw open all the bedroom doors. Nothing, no one. She went back and stood in the living room, turning around, as if she might find him hiding under a lamp or a table or something. Nothing.

"Hey, Danny! You in here somewhere? Why are you hiding?"

Silence. The clock ticked on the mantelpiece.

Every second frayed on Nicki's temper. She clenched her fists. "You can't hide from everything, you idiot! Shannon could really use her friend right now! You could be helping catch these guys! What is wrong with you?"

Nothing. She felt like an idiot, lecturing an empty room.

"It's not your fault! You know that, right?"

Probably not. That kid took self-deprecating to a whole new level.

"Fine then. If you want to mope around and feed the dog, then whatever, I don't care. Have fun with that."

She stomped out the door, making a point of turning out all the lights and locking everything up. If he didn't want to face it, that was his problem.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Moving right along, here's another bunch of deleted scenes! I hope you enjoy. Also can I say it's lovely to see your familiar usernames in the comments? I miss you guys.

 **Sapherer:** That's totally okay with me, hehe.

Till next time,

-Hj


	3. Chapter 3 - Valerie

_Hi folks! I'm sick and useless right now so digging out things I can finish up with minimal effort is the name of the game._

 _Valerie... oh man, did I have plans for Valerie. As my favorite female character on the show and one that was tragically under-used, I absolutely had to include her in the vast scope of SoaD. That said, I got a bit carried away...to the tune of some 15,00 words sketching out a beast of a story arc that was eventually slashed to the much more reasonable support role she plays in the final version. A good choice, but there were some really fun bits I had to yank as a consequence._

 _I'll comment on each of these individually as some of them are pretty out-there._

* * *

 **Deleted Scenes 3 - Valerie**

* * *

 _This was one of the final cuts to Valerie's list of scenes - because at ten chapters the "prologue" was already dragging and her POV wasn't necessary. The description and worldbuilding is fun, but the basic information (Valerie is actively hunting ghosts) hardly needed to be exposited on._

* * *

Valerie gunned the thrusters of her jet sled and rose high in the air, up above the rooftops, beyond the telephone poles and cheesy, always too-cheerful billboards, up beyond even the wispy white clouds that scudded across the hot, pale blue August sky.

Valerie sat cross-legged on her hoverboard and settled her hands into her lap, loosely cupped. She closed her eyes, blocking out the bright sun and the spreading vista, and breathed. Slowly, meditatively, like the sensei at the dojo had taught but she'd never paid much attention to. She'd always preferred the active side of martial arts. The doing. The movement and energy of a well-executed attack. She liked the feeling of grace and power it gave her.

This was a different kind of power.

As she breathed, her mind quieted, and that soft, electronic tone that had become a constant in her existence slowly came to the fore. It might be silly, but she felt like her suit talked to her. Almost. Something between a signal and a feeling, some connection that she couldn't describe but somehow understood.

She let the almost-musical tone fill her mind, focusing on it above everything else. Then she reached out and touched it. The tone twanged, vibrating and warping the sound like a plucked guitar string. She prodded it again, harder, with more purpose, and it sprang away and outside of her, sending its noise all over town. She was vaguely aware of interrupted TV signals and radios, of bursts of static that had voices and colors that were no concern of hers. No. She was looking for the cold, for the assonance, for the prickling feeling of something foreign to this dimension.

She was looking for the ghosts.

First one, then another, then dozens popped up on the "screen" of her mind's eye, scattered out like dots of rice on an empty red plate. The barest touch, down by the docks; a half dozen rat ghosts were scurrying about; and closer by, just below her, a few similarly sized feelings. There never seemed to be a shortage of small undead vermin. They were harmless...mostly. Not her concern for the moment, anyway.

Another tier of ghosts, louder and brighter, hummed just a few bars above the animal-types. Angry little spirits. Troublemakers. Val made a mental note of their general locations, planning to round them up this evening if she could slip away after supper without Dad noticing.

Finally, nearly an octave higher, vibrating with dissonance against her own note like a violin string being violently sawed, the big ones. The full humanoid ghosts; the ones she would have to be late to her shift for and that might even give her some trouble in a fight. There were three - four? No, that one wasn't strong enough to matter. One at the Nasty Burger. One under the lake. And a third in the park.

She frowned, undecided. Which one was more threatening? She didn't have the time to fight all three. Even if she did, she'd have to pick which one to go after first. She pressed again, this time focusing just on the more powerful ghosts. The one in the lake was still, even...dormant, she would say. A flat, unchanging note that was strong but stagnant. The one at the Nasty Burger was more vibrant, alive, and seemed to be...happy? In an evil sort of way. But not aggressive, somehow...it was only watching. Then Valerie remembered that strange ghost that looked like an old woman in a hair net that had taken to ogling the patrons as they stuffed themselves on highly processed beef. Creepy? Yes. Dangerous...not yet. And she could always keep an eye on that one while she worked.

Valerie opened her eyes, shook the ringing out of her ears, and stood up, locking her feet back onto the hover board. Number three it was, then. She took a moment squinting down through the clouds to get her bearings, then dove for the sprawling patch of green that marked Amity Park's largest park and garden. Valerie grinned as she swooped in over the trees, pulling a blaster from the holster at her hip and flicking off the safety, enjoying the familiar whine of the weapon charging up. Her battle suit hummed with energy, red light tinting her face shield. The hunt was about to begin.

* * *

 _I may actually recycle the following bit into rewriting an old abandoned Valerie fic someday... maybe. The gist of the leadup here is that Valerie fights Technus, Tucker jumps in at the opportune moment and uses the thermos, a beautiful friendship ensues._

 _In SoaD, I ended up re-routing their alliance through Tucker's arc (the fight with Dash and Val breaking it up as the inciting incident) because his 'time to cut the bullcrap and get things done' arc was more important to SoaD thematically than the more practical explanation of 'who's fighting all the ghosts now.' Technus made a comeback in the rewrite - but in a scene with broader strokes, to demonstrate how Sam, Tuck and Valerie were trying to work together to handle the ghost attacks._

* * *

Valerie sat on her butt on the floor where she had fallen and stared up in shock. It was like the ghost had just been sucked right out of existence. It was pitch black inside the store, the windows starkly marked by the dull yellow glow of the street lamps outside. The strange blue-white beam was still seared into her vision as an afterimage, the technological ghost's warped and stretched features a weird black pattern inside the rings of white energy.

"Wow," Tucker's voice commented from somewhere nearby. "That was dramatic."

Something in the store clicked and some small white emergency lights flickered on in the floor along the walkways. In the cool artificial twilight Valerie could see the silhouette of the other teenager, who was straightening up from his crouch in the middle of the floor where Technus had been. He must have run out underneath the ghost while they had been fighting. Valerie wasn't sure whether to be furious with him or impressed that he'd had the guts.

"Hang on a sec, I think I can get some of the lights back on."

"You can hack that too?"

"Sure," Tucker sounded amused as he moved away from her. Broken glass crunched beneath his feet. "Through the highly advanced technical maneuver known as 'groping around for a light switch.'"

She rolled her eyes. "I almost forgot you had actual hands, technogeek."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't move until I find it, okay? There's a lot of sharp stuff lying around."

Valerie decided not to point out the hypocrisy of that statement and instead began gingerly feeling out her injuries, taking stock. The worst of it seemed to be the welts on her forearms. They were luckily more friction than burn, since her suit had shielded her from the worst of the electricity. Valerie sighed; that still meant at least a week of long sleeves as she waited for the marks to fade. Val was beginning to hate summertime with a passion.

"There" Tuck said in satisfaction, his voice coming from the far end of the room. After a moment half the long, bright fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling flashed on. Valerie squinted till her eyes adjusted, then surveyed the damage to the computer store. It was impressive, even by her standards. Only two or three of the dozens of shelves were left standing. Circuit boards and tangles of wires, miscellaneous computer guts and the hard silver casing of the computer goods lay scattered in pieces across the floor like high tech shrapnel. The white tiled linoleum, which still gleamed in a few spots from a recent coat of wax, was broken up and scorched; in some places the tiles had been scorched away right down to the concrete.

"Oh man," Valerie groaned, sitting down on a stray chunk of shelf. "This place is trashed." If she got caught she could kiss college goodbye for good; it would take every penny she earned for the next decade to pay off all this stuff.

"You two really know how to throw a party," Tuck cracked. For a technogeek he seemed amazingly unconcerned by the state of the hardware surrounding him. He'd whipped out his laptop again and was typing in some program that seemed to be mostly incomprehensible walls of code. He talked as he typed, fingers not slowing down a fraction. "The silent alarm should have been tripped, but lucky for us Technus disabled it before we ever got here. And before you freak out about the damage..."

"Too late."

"Well, don't worry. These guys were insured against ghost attacks. There's probably enough ecto-residue here from all the blasting you two did to make the claim easy. I'm erasing the surveillance footage from here and the traffic cam outside."

"Won't that look a little weird?"

"They'll probably blame it on the ghost tech interfering with the tapes. Ectosignatures can make cameras go all wonky thanks to the electromagnetic pulses they emit. Haven't you seen any of those ghostbusting reality TV shows?"

"I thought that was just to cover up how fake the whole thing was."

"And you call yourself a ghost hunter."

* * *

 _Here's where things get a little strange and tangent-y._

 _While Valerie struggles to handle the post-Phantom power vacuum and the ensuing escalation of ghost attacks (in this early draft Sam and Tucker were not helping her out), random mid-level ghosts keep appearing and trying to deliver a message._

* * *

"Special delivery," it wheezed in a barely-there wisp of an old man's voice. "Message for Valerie Gr—" it broke off at the sound of the ectoblast and looked at the letter in its hand, now with a smoking hole right through its center. As if on cue, the remainder of it disintegrated into dust and fell out of his gnarled blue fingers.

"Sorry gramps," Valerie said, letting the ectogun dissolve back into the shoulder of her suit as she capped the thermos and clipped it to her belt. "I don't take fan mail."

The ghost snapped its fingers and the letter reappeared.

"Crazy old guy," Valerie muttered. She flipped backwards on her jet sled and shouted back at him. "What's it going to take for you to give up?"

"Neither rain nor wind nor snow nor sleet nor hail-"

"How about a laser blast to the face?!"

* * *

Valerie kicked her sneakers to the side of the toilet and peeled off her stale, sweat-soaked shirt. She dropped it on the cheap vinyl linoleum of the bathroom floor. The rest of her clothes quickly followed, taking up the tiny floor space in a matter of seconds. Valerie glanced in the mirror and winced at the new patterns of bruises. Blue and green marks flowered across her shoulder and left forearm. The giant lizard ghost had gotten in a good smack with its tail before she could take it down. She'd have to wear long sleeves for a while. Good thing it was getting colder.

She decided that making her shower long and hot was more important than washing her hair; her long, thick black curls took a good fifteen minutes just by themselves, and their apartment's rickety old water heater only provided really hot water for twenty minutes. She coiled her hair up on the top of her head and pinned it tightly. She twisted the squeaking knobs, first cold, then hot. If she settled for almost-comfortably-warm, she could make it twenty-five minutes.

Valerie leaned against the wall of the shower and let the thrumming water slowly soak away the knots in her shoulders. It had been a long day. She'd failed another quiz in history, and missed PE altogether. She was going to fail high school's easiest class just like Danny had. Danny who was Phantom who was Danny. Who had probably been too busy fighting ghosts to keep his grades up and too tired to care, just like her.

A weird prickling sensation crawled across the back of her neck, making her hair stand on end. Valerie had discovered over the past few weeks that her suit never really turned "off". Whenever there was a ghost within a few blocks of her, it reacted, like some kind of electronic sixth sense. She could even sort of gauge the threat level according to the intensity. The more worked up and angry the ghost, the stronger the feeling.

Valerie ignored it. It was barely there. Whoever-it-was wasn't causing any trouble. And with just five hours of sleep and a school day ahead of her, she couldn't bring herself to care.

That was another weird thing that had become true now that Phantom...now that Danny wasn't around. She simply couldn't care about every ghost. It just wasn't possible. There were too many. Back before the summer, back when Phantom was active every day, she'd ferret out every trace, even the little rat ghosts that scurried around back alleys and whose most dangerous quality was scaring the homeless away from the ventilation grates.

But now that there were many more dangerous ghosts-ones that went after humans, ones that wandered in traffic and caused wrecks, ones that destroyed things and harassed people that Valerie had to deal with. These new ghosts that weren't really new, that Phantom, that Danny was no longer protecting them-her-from. She'd had to focus on what was important. She'd had to learn to classify.

It was hard to admit and even harder to put into practice, but the fact was that some ghosts were just minding their own business and could be left to carry out their odd afterlives without being obliterated just on principle. Not that she wouldn't take a potshot if one crossed her path. Something Phantom-Danny had always objected to.

Valerie rested her forehead against the wall and sighed. Danny. She felt so stupid. Of course it was him. Now that she thought about it, the face, the way he talked, everything was so familiar. It at least explained why she had been so oddly attracted to her worst enemy.

But the other half of her was furious; why hadn't he told her? Why had he let her shoot at him? Almost kill him dozens of times? As much as she liked Danny, he'd still pulled some unbelievable jerk moves. Revealing her to her father for one thing. And that one scene she couldn't shake from her mind; Phantom taking aim directly at the heart of her stolen suit and firing. He'd mutilated it, blasted it into oblivion. A chill went down her spine just remembering, and now that she knew who Danny-Phantom-was, it was tinged with a much darker doubt. She reached for the body wash and uncapped it, squeezing it between her hands. Had he just gotten sick of her attacking him? Or had he really not known it was her?

"I don't claim to know much about human cleansing rituals, but I believe pouring the soap straight out into the drain misses the objective."

Valerie started and realized that she'd let the body wash tip sideways. "Crud!" She quickly tipped it upright and snapped the lid back on, but the bottle was already more than half gone. "What a waste," she muttered.

Then it hit her. The voice. The echoing, ghostly voice that had spoken to her with dry amusement just seconds before. Right here in the shower. That crawling feeling was still there, but it hadn't been from wondering about Danny's motives. It had been her ghost sensor intensifying. With an almost eerie calm Valerie turned her hand and locked eyes with the mechanical ghost that had poked its head through her shower wall.

"Greetings, hunter whelp," Skulker said, inclining his wall-decapitated head slightly."I have a message for you. The Obs-"

Valerie very carefully and conscientiously set down her body wash. Then she screamed bloody murder. This ghost was _so_ dead.

Ten seconds later, Dad pounded on her door. "Everything okay in there, sweetheart? I heard an ectoblast!"

She clutched the shower curtain to her chest and tried to calm her thudding heart. "It was a spider, Daddy. A really big, creepy spider." She glared at the smoking spot on the wall. "With no sense of personal space!"

"Don't you think using firepower is overkill?"

"No!"

* * *

 _What did these random ghosts want? Well. That's a whole thing._

 _I always liked the parallels between Danny and Valerie; both ghost hunters, both hiding from their parents, both high school kids trying to make it through the day, but with very different core motivations and philosophies about ghosts. Pre-s3 of canon also seemed to be implying there was some significance to Danny's unique position. With Phantom out of the picture, who would fulfill this destiny?_

 _The only other (non-evil and stable) person who had both human and ectoplasmic traits, of course._

 _Long story short, in my SoaD freewrites I ended up taking Valerie on a random epic Quest of Cosmic Destiny. Which really, really did not belong smack in the middle of SoaD. It was definitely the right decision to cut the whole arc. Focusing on her relationship with her dad and coming to terms with her own unique inhumanity was much more on-theme and concise._

 _As for this whole mess? It deserves to be a story of its own, it really does. If I ever get to the point where I can put more time into fanfiction, I'd love to try. For now? Here's a brief look._

* * *

The Ghost Zone always creeped Valerie out. It was so big and dark, but with that eerie green-white glow that seemed to be everywhere at once. There were never shadows. Or if there were, they didn't match up with the people they followed. Wisps of dark green free-floating ectoplasm spiraled out like strands of seaweed into a dark and endless sea. There was a chill in the air, sharp enough that it had bitten through the sturdy fabric of her first suit. Now solidly encased in the psuedo-metal of her battle suit, the chill was just a barely-there, pleasant coolness. She could still taste that weird coppery tang in her mouth from breathing the air. for some reason it reminded her of blood. She didn't like it.

The scary part was that in most of the Ghost Zone, there was no ground. None at all. If you looked up, there was endless space and darkness with whorls of purple and green mist. If you looked down, way, way, down, there was the same. There were places to stand, but they were odd little broken-up islands dotted here and there in the gloom, dwarfed by the infinite space. Other odd objects floated here and there; socks, strange blinking, decrepit-looking satellites, stray chunks of the violet-blue rock that seemed to make up the main "land masses" of this place. Nothing was anchored, nothing was connected, it just all floated around in the void like space flotsam.

Valerie was usually fearless on her jet sled, but oddly the fact that there *wouldn't* be any kind of ground to break her fall (or her bones) was somehow scarier. she kept her eyes fixed steadily on floating islands in the distance to keep from getting vertigo.

A shimmering line of green streaked across the sky. The hairs prickled up on the back of her arms and something like a static shock ran over her skin. She shivered and tapped her foot on the hover board, urging it a little closer to the ghost princess.

Dora glanced at her, but said nothing. Valerie guessed it went against some kind of lady code to tease somebody for being nervous. Youngblood on the other hand, had no such reservations.

The ghost boy flipped himself around deftly on his bony mount, which was currently in the form of some sort of sea beast with a long neck and powerful flippered tail. "What's the matter, Val-pal? The great big huntress afraid of the dark?"

Valerie scowled. She knew it. "The only thing I'm afraid of is my dinner getting cold, pipsqueak. Could your whatever-it-is fly any slower?"

"He's an anti-pitticus," Youngblood retorted indignantly.

"Anthropithicus," the beast corrected lazily, turning its head to regard Valerie with a saucer-sized, half-lidded red eye. "And I see no reason to be in a hurry, thank you very much."

"You afraid you'll die of old age before we get there, old lady?"

"I'm sixteen, you brat."

"Granny."

"Snotface."

"Hag."

"Master Youngblood," Dora interjected sternly. "Please do not antagonize the huntress. She is our guest."

"Aww, spoil my fun," Youngblood huffed, putting his chin in his hands and puffing out blue-white, freckled cheeks.

"Where exactly are we going, anyway?" Valerie asked. "I've never been this deep in the ghost zone before." She neglected to mention that she'd never actually been there at all of her own will.

"To the Councilroom. You can already see it in the distance, behold!" The princess ghost raised a graceful blue hand and pointed at one of the larger chunks of rock off in the distance. She could just make out the outline of a building perched at the edge of the island. Valerie squinted, but her suit was already activating a zoom feature on the face shield, magnifying it until she could see clearly the tall, black building surrounded by free-standing columns.

"Finally," she said. Part of her had started to wonder if these ghosts were just taking her out to lose her in the void forever.

* * *

A sonorous voice boomed along the corridor. "Enter, Valerie Gray, mortal ghost hunter. Come speak with the Council of the Eyes."

"Feeling right at home already," Val muttered. She deactivated her jet sled, landing on the black flagstones with a light tap. She walked toward the light. The two ghosts that had brought her to this place followed close behind her. That was strangely comforting; not because she was friends with them or anything and wanted their moral support. No...she just knew it was that much less likely to be a trap. That's all.

As she approached she realized the green glow came from a gathering of ghosts. At least seventy of the ghosts hovered in a half-circle over the seats of an auditorium of sorts, a steep row of seats that towered several stories in the air. At the bottom was a small raised platform. It looked like the stage for a play...or maybe the judgment stand for a trial.

The ghosts themselves were some of the strangest Valerie had seen, and one of the weirder things was that they looked all alike. Darkly dressed, humanoid bodies. Gaudy purple cloaks with high, gold-edged collars, clasped across the collarbone below what should have been the throat with a heavy gold chain. There was no sign of a neck. Sprouting directly out of the shoulders were large, gelatinous, glaring mint green eyeballs.

She was determined not to show just how creeped out-and yes, intimidated-this official-looking group of ghosts made her feel. She strode up to the platform and stepped onto it, gazing up into the sea of cloaks and those freaky eyes and matched them stare for stare.

"So I'm here," she said. "Care to tell me why you went through so much trouble to drag a ghost hunter out into the middle of the Ghost Zone?"

"Greetings, Valerie Gray. Some introductions first, if you don't mind." She couldn't tell which of the ghosts had spoken. They didn't have any visible mouths, so it wasn't like she could spot the lips moving. It didn't seem to matter much anyway; they were all the same.

One of the ghosts floated forward a little from his seat, encompassing all his fellows with a sweeping gesture of one arm. "We are the Observants. We are the watchers of this dual world. We see all there is to be seen of the movements of civilization, the shifts of cultures and powers on a global scale. We gaze into the future and back into the depths of time.

"Through the ages the contact between our worlds has been mitigated by the temporary quality of natural portals. They come and go, too fleeting and unstable to support any prolonged conflict. Nonetheless, the worlds are connected and on the most fundamental level. Your memories are our reality. Our power is your life. One without the other would fall, the universe itself listing off course like a ship weighted on only one side."

"You mean the universe would go in circles?"

"It would sink."

"Into what?"

The eye looked irritated. "You're overlooking the significance of the metaphor here, human child. Stop with these inane questions and listen."

"The point is that it is unquestionable that the two worlds are linked. One cannot survive without the other. And if one side of the veil ever overpowered the other, the balance would be lost and all would be in peril. Thus it fell to us, the Observants, to observe and ensure neither side threatened the continued existence of the other. We have prevented disasters of a large scale time and again for humans and for ghosts. But things have changed, for the first time in millennia. The balance can no longer be watched from afar."

"With the establishment of a permanent portal that offers regular travel between worlds, clashes between humans and ectoplasmic beings has become much more frequent. We can no longer watch from a distance. The disturbances of the Fright Knight, Pariah Dark, and their ilk are just foretastes of the tribulations that will visit your entire planet if something is not done. And the threat of large-scale human invasion or even destruction of the Ghost Zone itself is not outside the realm of possibility. No, we must counteract these things before they come to pass. We must...get involved and create some form of bond with the humans.

"Okay, that sounds important... but why are you talking to me? I'm a ghost hunter, not a ghost helper."

"If things had gone as intended, we would have approached Danny Phantom when he came of age with this same proposition. But the timeline has again shifted without our prior knowledge."

All eyes turned to an entrance on the far side of the room, where a new ghost emerged - tall, carrying a staff, with a deep purple cloak and red eyes that glowed from under a shadowing hood. As Valerie watched, he seemed to shift, back bending, a white beard springing from his chin.

The newcomer frowned. "The time "line", as you call it, is not so rigid as you like to believe. It doesn't take my interference for the flow to shift."

"So you say." The great eye blinked at the cloaked ghost coldly. "Yet the ghost boy is the altering factor. And he, if you remember, is your responsibility, Clockwork."

"My responsibility, not my puppet," he retorted. "A lesson that would be useful for you Observants to learn. Perhaps you should cease with your meddling and allow me to pursue my own tasks in my own time."

"In your time, not ours, Clockwork," snapped another Observant. "We are getting away from the issue at hand."

All eyes turned to her. All big, creepy, faceless eyes.

"Yes." The cloaked ghost, Clockwork, shifted again, this time to a young man who was broad-shouldered and powerful. He turned his cool red gaze on her, and that was somehow more intimidating than the hundreds of eyeballs. Valerie felt her hackles rise, and resisted the urge to fall back into a defensive stance. He looked at her as if he was examining her soul, and had found her lacking. She didn't like being judged; especially not by some ghost. But she wasn't going to let him intimidate her, either.

She tossed her dark hair back and looked him squarely in the eye. "You creeps still haven't told me why I'm here."

Clockwork looked completely unruffled by her defiance. "Answer me this, human. Are you dedicated to protecting your world?"

"Of course I am."

"To defending those who need it, both living and dead?"

Both? Valerie hesitated, her gaze falling on Youngblood and Dora, hovering at the back of the room. "If they deserve it," she acknowledged grudgingly.

"Hmm. I think she is ready."

"Very well. Then the trials begin."

* * *

"I didn't bring you here to explain the quantum complexities of temporal manipulation to you, Valerie. I'm giving you a test. Now watch." The ghost reached out his staff and dipped it into the stream, drawing out a strand of whirling light, this one more transparent than the main stream, and tinged ever so faintly green. Clockwork raised the staff delicately until the wisp broke away from the rest, then swept out his staff in an arc, throwing the light out into the darkness.

Out of the gloom materialized a door. It had a mask embedded in the wood, blue with gleaming vampiric teeth parted in a sly smile. It looked somehow familiar, though she couldn't quite place it.

"So the test is...to just go through this door?"

"You will see scenes from the time stream," the ghost said, shifting again to a child, his voice flowing into high prepubescent tones. "Some past, some future. Some real, some from a reality that has been averted. Some you are to observe, and some you must face head on. There are five doors, five tests, five requirements. If you pass them all, you will be accepted by the Observants," The ghost paused. "And by me."

Valerie scowled and crossed her arms. "Why do I need to impress you?"

He smiled at her with that superior, mysterious look that was quickly becoming irritating. "Let's see if you can first, hmm?"

"You can't make me go through that door."

"No, I can't," he said agreeably. "But I can wait until you do. I have all the time in the world."

He had a point, Valerie realized. She looked around, wondering if she could just walk away from all this stupidity. But they didn't seem to be in a "place" at all. The ground under her feet was black and perfectly smooth. The sky above was black and perfectly empty. It wasn't the ghost zone. She didn't even know if it was possible to get back without this time ghost's assistance.

Valerie reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. "Is it dangerous?"

He watched her, red eyes inscrutable. "Are you afraid?"

"No! It's just...my weapons are still offline. I want to be prepared."

"You won't need your weapons."

The knob was cold, with just the slightest bit of frost coating it, making it slick under her fingertips. The whole door seemed to vibrate with a weird energy; she could almost hear it, like a muted guitar string.

"Doesn't look like I'll have much of a choice, will I?"

She set her shoulders, gripped the handle, and pulled the door open. Inside was a softly glowing white mist. Valerie took a deep breath, then stepped inside.

* * *

 _That's pretty much it for Valerie's deleted scenes/arcs!_

 _Thanks for the reviews, guys - I'm glad you find these snippets entertaining and/or insightful. It's fun to look back and see how much the story changed over the writing of it. I think I have a bit more? Maybe a Shannon chapter, possibly some Lancer if I actually wrote any of that out._

 _Till next time,_

 _-Hj_


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